Toy story: how tycoon Lam Leung-tim built his empire
Toy tycoon Lam Leung-tim once sold vegetables and slept in a coffin; now he spends his time giving back, a trait that helped him win his wife
He's the son of a chef; she's the daughter of a movie director. They met some 20 years ago at a hotel in Beijing, introduced by the actress Siqin Gaowa. And despite a 30-year age gap, the toy tycoon known as "LT" and his wife, Shelly Lam Qi Xiaobin, have been together pretty much ever since.
"You know, when I first met him, I thought, he's so old and so short," the 60-year-old Shelly says of her husband Lam Leung-tim, who will turn 90 next month. "But the more I got to know him, the more I realised he had a good character. He was always so considerate of people."
They are an unusual pair. LT made his fortune selling plastic toys to American companies Hasbro and Hallmark. His wife was an optometrist for the PLA.
But after a career that has involved everything from selling newspapers to sleeping in coffins, LT is used to the unusual.
"Never be afraid of being taken advantage of, just learn from it," says LT, now head of Forward Winsome Industries.
LT was born in 1924 into a Hong Kong still recovering from the first world war. When Japan invaded, he and his family fled to the mainland. For years he was a farmer, selling vegetables at a village, where he met the daughter of a wealthy landowner. He married her and returned to Hong Kong, but with little money.